Start time: 11/6/07, 6:45pm
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 3.5 miles
Average pace: 9:49min/mile

This week is the final piece of tapering, with runs scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Tuesday said “35 minutes easy run” so after Sunday’s failed attempt, I decided to try again to discover a 10min/mile pace. (It’s hardest to hit early in a run for me, let along maintaining it.) I really need to be able to do that early on so I don’t crash and burn yet again with six miles to go. This worked much better (9:47, 9:41, 9:53, and 4:58 for the half) although I am still a tiny bit convinced that the track isn’t quite a full eighth of a mile. But still, I feel like progress is being made. (And episodes 1-2 of the Doctor Who story “Marco Polo” were absolutely wonderful to listen to while running.)

Start time: 11/7/07, 8:00am
Location: Wilson Boulevard & Clarendon Boulevard
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 9:09min/mile

The idea here was to do another 10min/mile pace (schedulebot: “30 minutes easy run”), but I went running outside and hit two problems. First, my GPS went crazy and I suddenly had no idea what sort of pace I was running, and second, it was just too cold to be bothering with that anyway. So I just ran the distance, took the average of the total time (27:27), and called it a day.

Start time: 11/8/07, 7:45am
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 8:14min/mile

Today’s scheduled run was a 3-mile tempo, so back to the gym I went for one final circling around the indoor track. The paces were good (8:31, 8:09, 8:02), the audiobook was fantastic (episode 3 of “Marco Polo”), and hopefully? Maybe? Race day here we come.

Fingers crossed!